life with­out white food

It turns out to be sim­pler than you think, not to eat white food.  But why?

I don’t ever want to become a per­son who counts calo­ries or carbs or any­thing else, when decid­ing what to eat.  But on the oth­er hand, there can be no deny­ing that one’s metab­o­lism (all right, MINE) slows down after a cer­tain age.  At that point, even play­ing ten­nis four times a week can­not can­cel out all the effect of the love­ly food that comes from my kitchen.  A deci­sion must be made.  Do I want to get ever stouter, like a car­toon French chef, my white apron stretched across my enor­mous girth?  Once I phrased it like that to myself, I real­ized the time for com­pro­mise had come.

Coin­ci­den­tal with this thought came the vis­it, over the week­end, of our beloved friend the bril­liant archi­tect Joel, who designed our New York apart­ment, quite the most per­fect place we had ever lived, and prob­a­bly ever will live.  And while it was won­der­ful to see him, it was also clear that there was a lot less of him to see than the last time we were togeth­er!  He looks sim­ply gor­geous, all slim and beard­ed and sexy.  A dev­as­tat­ing man.

Under gen­tle ques­tion­ing, the mys­tery was solved.  “I stopped eat­ing bread and pota­toes and pas­ta,” he said sim­ply, scoop­ing up scram­bled eggs and roast­ed toma­toes at my table, leav­ing the toast­ed cia­bat­ta quite untouched.  And there our plan was born.

Num­ber one, John stopped shav­ing!  Avery points out that right now he looks like he for­got to shave, but I’m sure that anoth­er week or two will take care of that.  Num­ber two, I made a lit­tle trip to my friend Annie’s house with a bag of unopened flour, box­es of crack­ers and bis­cuits, bags of rice.  And we haven’t looked back.

Now I know this is a very unsci­en­tif­ic way to Not-Diet.  Look­ing into the notion of car­bo­hy­drates online, I found all sorts of inter­est­ing things, like that peo­ple who are seri­ous about this stuff won’t eat things like beets, or car­rots, and won’t drink alco­hol.  Now, to me, a life with­out beets or Abso­lut Cit­ron is not worth liv­ing, or at least not enough for me to con­sid­er it.  I also feel that a world phi­los­o­phy that tells you ANY veg­etable is bad for you is rub­bish.  Beets are good for you, PERIOD.

So we have decid­ed we can eat all foods that are not white.  My excep­tions to this rule are two of the basic food groups in our house­hold: gar­lic, and haddock.

The scary thing about the way we’ve been eat­ing is that we were ALREADY eat­ing all the foods every­one has sug­gest­ed to replace white food.  Plus we’ve been eat­ing white food!  No won­der we were expand­ing hor­i­zon­tal­ly.  If you were raised in the Mid­west of Amer­i­ca, as both my beloved and I were, you will rec­og­nize the Tri­ad of the Din­ner Plate: meat, veg­etable and… starch.  Of course in my child­hood, this method was put in place in part to save mon­ey, because pota­toes filled us up and we required few­er pork chops, minute steaks and baked chick­en, the sta­ples of my moth­er’s unen­thu­si­as­tic kitchen.  Minute Rice?  Check.  Bread and mar­garine?  Check.  Pota­toes out of a Bet­ty Crock­er box?  Def­i­nite­ly.  And once a month or so, spaghet­ti, with cheese from a green can.

So it’s a bit of a strain to teach myself to approach the din­ner plate with a dif­fer­ent atti­tude.  Two veg­eta­bles, how about that?  Lentils, chick­peas for that pota­toey feel­ing in the mouth.  Pap­pad­um, made from lentils, when you want the feel­ing of a bread thing.  It’s working.

Dal (lentil stew)

(serves 4)

1 1/2 cups dried lentils

enough chick­en stock to cov­er the lentils, plus 1/2 cup extra

2 tbsps olive oil

4 cloves garlic

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp pow­dered cumin

2 tsps turmeric

1 tsp crushed chill­is, or one small chilli minced

1 tsp sea salt

large hand­ful corian­der (cilantro), chopped roughly

1 tsp garam masala

Soak the lentils in cold water for 30 min­utes.  Rinse thor­ough­ly and place in a saucepan, and cov­er with chick­en stock.  Sim­mer for 30–40 min­utes until lentils are ful­ly soft.  With a stick blender or food proces­sor, puree the lentils and chick­en stock.

Heat the olive oil in a large fry­ing pan.  When oil is hot, add cumin seeds and turmer­ic and siz­zle for 30 sec­onds, then add gar­lic and cook until soft, but not browned.  Add the pureed lentils, chill­is, and salt to taste.  Cook gen­tly for a few min­utes, then stir in the corian­der and garam masala.  Taste again for salt, and serve warm, in a lit­tle bowl, with pap­pad­um to scoop it up and per­haps a dol­lop of yogurt on the side.

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I’ve roast­ed a lot of veg­eta­bles, and made a lot of soups: creamy red pep­per, mush­room with Marsala, cele­ri­ac with Cham­pagne.  At some point I will have to break down and make pas­ta for Avery, but we’ll think of something.

Lunch one day was this glo­ri­ous sal­ad: so sim­ple, such a won­der­ful com­bi­na­tion of flavors.

Avo­ca­do and Beet­root Sal­ad with Lemongrass

(serves 4)

2 ripe avocados

6 small beets

1 stalk lemon­grass, out­er leaves dis­card­ed, minced

driz­zle olive oil

juice of 1/2 lemon

fresh black pepper

Roast the beets in alu­minum foil for 1 hour at 400F/200C.  Peel and slice thin­ly.  Arrange on a plate with the avo­ca­dos, sliced as you like.  Sprin­kle over the lemon­grass, olive oil, lemon juice and pep­per. Voila.

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The day we had roast chick­en in Chi­nese pan­cakes, John and I wrapped ours in let­tuce instead.  It’s working!

I am not, how­ev­er, notice­ably slen­der­er.  It’s Day Six.

While we’ve been adjust­ing to our new life, we’ve had lots to dis­tract us.  The won­der­ful 501st Birth­day Par­ty for Avery’s peer­less school in a cathe­dral which shall remain name­less because it gives away the name of her school.  The soar­ing nave, the mag­nif­i­cent dome, the sound of many lit­tle boys singing, a very intel­li­gent, inspi­ra­tional ser­mon.  “Use these days of safe­ty in your won­der­ful school,” the bish­op said, “to ask your­self what you want to do in this life, per­haps some­thing no one else can do.  What would you like to contribute?”

The girls, instead of lis­ten­ing, gig­gled behind their hands at the real focus of their day: the Boys, from the boys’ school attached to their girls’ school.  These for­eign crea­tures felt the pow­er of the fem­i­nine gazes and tossed their hair accord­ing­ly.  Every­one sim­pered, then sang the final hymn and filed out under the watch­ful gaze of the High Mis­tress and Head Mas­ter.  We all felt chastened.

And my friend JoAnn came to din­ner, which event always makes Avery shake her head in dis­be­lief.  “The way you guys LAUGH when you are togeth­er!  It’s incred­i­ble.”  And it’s true.  Jo has a true, unquench­able love of life that just makes you want to be with her.  But even Jo, even with her adven­tur­ous spir­it, could not be moved to try the very odd food that we added to our tra­di­tion­al pier­rade of grilled meats.  Ostrich!  And ante­lope!  We’ve been to the South African super­mar­ket, of course.

This amaz­ing place, St Mar­cus in Put­ney, is dif­fi­cult to find, so per­se­vere.  We were moved to go because my gor­geous friend Sue and her South African hus­band had giv­en us din­ner the night before, and the lit­tle starter with drinks was a bowl of extreme­ly supe­ri­or beef jerky, called “bil­tong.”  Slight­ly spicy, com­plex­ly fla­vored, salty and deli­cious, it pro­pelled us to the shop for more.  And while there, of course, we could not resist the strange exot­ic meats on dis­play.  “It’s a kind of ante­lope, with HUGE antlers,” the butch­er said of the “kudu” fil­let we bought.  He pro­duced his iPhone and brought up a pho­to of the crea­ture.  Goodness.

As well, we bought deli­cious chick­en kebabs, already strung on skew­ers, mar­i­nat­ed in peri-peri sauce and a creamy gar­lic mix­ture.  John grilled these last night and they were gor­geous.  No pho­to: we were too hun­gry to wait!

And I’ve been cook­ing for four these days, because my beloved moth­er in law has arrived for her autum­nal vis­it.  What joy to have her under my roof where I can do things for her, have her invalu­able help while I cook, wear the new love­ly short skirt she brought for me (some­one tell me when I’m too old, please).  Her vis­its always are bit­ter­sweet because we get a chance to see what life would be like if we were always togeth­er, and it’s a bit awful know­ing this will prob­a­bly nev­er hap­pen.  We must enjoy the vis­its.  She is a per­son who is defined to an enor­mous degree by her gen­tle curios­i­ty about the world around her.  She asks ques­tions!  She lis­tens.  She wants to know what you’re read­ing and why, what you’re cook­ing and why, who’s com­ing over tonight and what they’re like.  It’s inter­est­ing to see one­self through her eyes: so much more fas­ci­nat­ing than I know I real­ly am!

And, drum roll please… Avery has had her the­atri­cal tri­umph of the year: as Ceci­ly in “The Impor­tance of Being Earnest” at school.  She was noth­ing short of mag­nif­i­cent!  Dressed as to the manor born in a floor length dress of pink ros­es, twin­kling­ly clever and saucy and bright-eyed, all her lines down pat.  Sim­ply won­der­ful, we were burst­ing with pride.

She and two of her cast­mates’ fam­i­lies came back home for a cel­e­bra­tion din­ner, and much post-the­atre man­ic laugh­ter, quo­ta­tions from Doc­tor Who, imi­ta­tions of teach­ers, devour­ing meat­balls and green beans and fruit sal­ad between hic­cups of hys­te­ria.  How won­der­ful they all are: so self-pos­sessed, so fun­ny, so hard­work­ing to put on their play.  A won­der­ful evening.

Right.  I must dash to fin­ish the last-minute jobs that occur when eight peo­ple are expect­ed at your house for sup­per.  Cala­mari to start — oh, anoth­er white food! — fol­lowed by slow-braised shoul­der of beef, more green beans with lemon zest and gar­lic, and a choco­late mousse.  If it’s good, I’ll post the recipe.  Oh, anoth­er white food — whipped dou­ble cream!  Nev­er mind, I nev­er was a stick­ler for details…